Telegram is dead. Start mourning.

The rush on Sunday at the telegraph office on Cubbon Road in Bangalore was unprecedented. Officials don't recall this kind of a surge even when the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) was operational at the adjacent building in an era before email and mobile phones.

| TNN | Updated: Jul 15, 2013, 02:56 IST

BANGALORE: The rush on Sunday at the telegraph office on Cubbon Road in Bangalore was unprecedented. Officials don't recall this kind of a surge even when the Central Telegraph Office (CTO) was operational at the adjacent building in an era before email and mobile phones.
There was a reason for the crowds to keep swelling through the day. On Sunday the messages were a tribute to the medium itself. Telegram, once the bearer of tidings, grave, happy and momentous, had passed on. And the death was foretold and time, 6pm, fixed earlier.

By 6pm, 884 Bangaloreans had sent telegrams to their loved ones to be part of this epochal event. And officials said there were 75 more people waiting to send messages and there was no way they would not oblige them. An hour later, people continued to trickle in.

College-goers and children who had cut teeth through emails and mobile phones were the most conspicuous. But people in their sixties and seventies too came from faraway places like Rajarajeshwarinagar, Electronic City and Jalahalli to the Cubbon Road office to send their near and dear ones a telegram and keep the acknowledgement as memorabilia.

Balachander V, a techie from Electronic City, had this message for his wife: "I love you." "My wife always complained that I had never proposed to her. So I thought it would be a grand idea to use the telegram and propose to her," said Balachander, who is creating a web portal on the last telegrams.

Bheshaj Kumar from Cleveland in the US had asked his sister, Sandhya Krishnappa, in Bangalore to send him a last message that he would keep framed forever. "My brother in Cleveland came to know that the telegram service will be withdrawn so he requested me over mail to send him a telegram. He wants to frame it forever," said Sandhya, a physiotherapist from Hanumanthnagar in south Bangalore.

"We are sending happy messages to our friends. It is the last day of telegrams. Technology has triumphed over it. This is the right time to value and bid goodbye to the telegram," said 19 year-old Krish Sanghvi, a BBM student.

Kothandaraman S of Rajarajeswarinagar still recalls one day in the 1950s, when his parents cried seeing a piece of paper. "An aunt of mine had died and the news came via telegram. I woke up and saw everyone in my family mourning over a piece of paper. Then I came to know what telegram was and associated it with bad news most of the times. Sometimes, distant relatives would send a message if they were coming home. Then they colour-coded the paper and that was a great relief," he said.

"The end of the service indicates the passing of an era. Now it is a slower way of communication. My son first said 'so what' when I told him it was never going to be used again. He later showed interest in knowing about it," said Raghunandan G from Basaveshwaranagar. Incidentally, the father and the son both sent their first and last telegrams on Sunday.

Don't kill it

Abhay Kumar Jain, a high court advocate, said telegrams must be continued with even if it meant increasing the charges. "It's not about sentiments, it is important for lawyers. We get certified copy of a telegram sent with regard to our hearings and it stays as proof forever. Judges from mofussil courts are even today not convinced with mails or SMS, sent about stay or hearings," he told TOI.

"It should have survived. Not every citizen of India is tech-savvy and can use mails or mobiles to communicate. Our fondest memories are of walking into a telegraph office to send a message to a beloved. Today, SMS and e-mails have made it impersonal. We are wiping out precious traces of our past," said Bhsuhan Oberoi, businessman.

Final words

I preserved the telegram my wife's grandfather sent to my father-in-law when she was born on September 18, 1958. It was written on a postcard then. Today, I want to send a last telegram to my mother-in-law, asking her to come to our place as soon as possible

N Damodar, 58, resident, CMH Road

I am sending my last telegram to my daughter who stays in Delhi now. Although I have not sent any telegrams, I have received many. I found telegrams a safe mode of communication as they were delivered only to the person whose name is mentioned on it and no one else could lay hands on it, unlike other posts. I have sent her my thoughts of this day to her

Rajaq Begum, senior citizen, Jayanagar

We don't belong to the generation of telegrams but it is nice to have little mementos. I am sending happy messages and little poems to our family and friends, particularly to grandparents, who would really treasure this

Nikhil Shankar, entrepreneur, Cooke Town

In villages telegrams command respect even today. I still remember when the postman came to deliver telegrams, the neighbourhood flocked around him. People have moved on with time and technology. But I want to tell my children and grandchildren what it was. So I am sending this last message to my son about my first telegram experience in short

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